Hey there, friends, have you ever felt like you're constantly battling against your own body due to societal pressures? You know you want to care for yourself better, but somehow, there's always something holding you back?
Welcome back to another soul-nourishing episode of Nourished to Bloom! I'm Kara Trochta, and today, we're diving deep into the incredible power of love, compassion, and mercy in our health journeys. 🌸
📢 In Episode 35, "Love, Compassion, and Mercy: Foundational Keys to Better Health," I share a personal experience that recently disrupted my life – a sudden and dizzying bout of vertigo. Spoiler: It threw off my podcast schedule, but it also gave me profound insights into self-care.
🌪️The vertigo, likely triggered by weather changes and allergens piling up in my eustachian tube, led me on an urgent care visit and a deeper introspective journey. 🏥 What stood out most was how my faith and intuitive eating guided me through this challenging time. Rather than succumbing to stress and societal norms of constant productivity, I tuned into self-compassion and care.
Here's what you'll discover in this episode:
💖 The significance of loving God with all your heart and how this devotion fuels a healthful life. 🫶🏻 The transformative power of intuitive eating in fostering self-care rooted in compassion. 🕊️ How spiritual reliance on the Lord provides guidance and healing during health challenges. 🌟 Real personal and client success stories illustrating how integrating love and faith can lead to better health outcomes, including positive pregnancy results and managing chronic conditions. 🌿 Tune into your body, listen to its needs with love, and resist external pressures that deny your well-being.
Call to Action: This week, I challenge you to reflect on how you can incorporate love, compassion, and mercy into your daily health practices. 🌼 Perhaps it’s forgiving yourself for missing a workout or showing kindness to your body with nourishing food choices. See these actions as a way to honor Christ’s teachings and transform your health.
Next Steps:
Join the Faith Led Food Freedom Coaching Program: A 10 Week Christ-Centered Transformational Journey to Heal Your Relationship with Food & Your Body. Learn more and register at: https://www.karatrochta.com/foodfreedom/
Book your FREE Wellness Audit Session: https://calendly.com/karatrochta/faithledwellness
Join the 7 Day Faith-Led Wellness Challenge: www.challenge.karatrochta.com
Nourished to Bloom Community: https://community.karatrochta.com/spaces/8590323/list
Show Notes: https://nourishedtobloom.com
Connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karatrochta/
Time Stamp Overview: 00:00 Commitment and Christ-centered self-love. 06:32 Holistic health through compassionate self-care. 09:15 Client stories of overcoming health challenges with faith-based guidance. 12:50 Navigating chronic conditions with patience and faith. 15:32 Emphasizing rest and self-care over societal productivity. 18:10 Reduced stress and improved mental health with self-love. 20:25 Challenge of self-reflection.
Join The Nourished to Bloom Community: www.community.karatrochta.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/karatrochta
The Nourished to Bloom Podcast Show Notes: www.podcast.karatrochta.com/shownotes
00:00:01
Hey there. I hope you're doing well. In this week's episode of
00:00:05
the Nourish to Bloom podcast, I want to spend a little bit of time
00:00:08
focusing on the spiritual virtues of
00:00:12
love, compassion and mercy and how when we
00:00:16
incorporate them into our health and wellness journey, how
00:00:19
they can really be foundational keys to better health,
00:00:23
to better physical health, better emotional health, better mental
00:00:27
health, and how when we embrace these,
00:00:31
we can really incorporate our faith, incorporate
00:00:34
that surrender in to the Lord to
00:00:38
better our health. And so I'm going to do that by sharing
00:00:42
a couple of key things about love, compassion and mercy, as well as sharing
00:00:46
a couple of stories of things that I have experienced even most
00:00:50
recently, as well as how really taking this
00:00:53
love, compassion and merciful approach to health was
00:00:57
really transformative for some of the people that I've worked with in the past
00:01:01
when they were facing maybe tough
00:01:04
decisions or a tough diagnosis or certain stages of
00:01:08
life, and really being able to incorporate these
00:01:12
into their health and wellness journey and really let
00:01:15
them be their guides and their foundations for better health. So
00:01:19
I hope you'll join me and I will see you in there.
00:01:23
Welcome to the Nourish to Bloom podcast. Where your faith meets your
00:01:27
health. I'm your host, Cara Trachta, a registered dietitian and
00:01:31
certified Catholic coach, and I'm here to help you cultivate a deeper connection
00:01:34
with your body, your spirit and the nourishment that sustains them
00:01:38
both. In a world filled with noise and confusion
00:01:42
about food, health and body image, this podcast offers truth
00:01:46
and healing from a Christ centered perspective. Together, we'll
00:01:49
untangle the deep roots of diet culture and discover what it means.
00:01:53
To truly care for ourselves through joyful. Nourishment
00:01:57
of mind, body and soul. We're here to dive into the
00:02:00
transformative. Power of intuitive eating coupled with the. Rich teachings of our
00:02:04
Christian faith. With every episode, I'll be cheering you on,
00:02:08
offering insights, inspiration and practical tools to help you
00:02:12
heal your relationship with food and embrace the beauty of your
00:02:15
body as a temple of the Holy Spirit with confidence
00:02:19
and courage that can. Only be found in Christ.
00:02:23
Join me as we journey together towards a more holistic approach to wellness,
00:02:26
one that honors the wisdom of your body as God's creation,
00:02:30
the teachings of our faith, and the unique purpose you're called to
00:02:34
fulfill. You were made to bloom,
00:02:38
to come into full beauty and health in order to bear good fruit
00:02:42
for the Lord with your life. So if you're ready to nourish your body,
00:02:45
feed your soul and bloom into the best version of yourself, then you're
00:02:49
in the right place. And I'm so happy you're here. Welcome
00:02:53
to Nourish to Bloom, where every day is a sacred
00:02:56
invitation to thrive.
00:03:01
Hey there. Welcome back to another episode of the Nourish to Bloom
00:03:05
podcast. I'm your host, Kara Tracta, and I hope that you are
00:03:08
having a beautiful and blessed week. Now, some of you are
00:03:12
like, this episode's a little late dropping, and yes,
00:03:16
it is, but it actually lended itself to
00:03:20
really a beautiful message, really,
00:03:23
this idea of love, compassion, and mercy being
00:03:27
foundational keys to better health. And really just
00:03:30
this experience that I had actually yesterday and how taking this
00:03:34
approach really allowed me to focus on my
00:03:38
health and make informed decisions about my health in the
00:03:41
moment. And how this, this approach of
00:03:45
love, compassion, and mercy has really been a guide in my whole healing
00:03:49
journey and how that has led to better health for myself. And I
00:03:53
also want to share just a couple of stories of how this approach has helped
00:03:56
other clients really have transformative journeys
00:04:00
in their own health. And, well, this. So I apologize for
00:04:04
this being late, but yesterday morning,
00:04:07
I, like, right as I was waking up, I was laying in bed,
00:04:11
just about to get up, and everything started
00:04:15
spinning. I was so
00:04:17
incredibly dizzy, even with
00:04:21
my eyes closed, like, my world was spinning. I told my husband, he's like,
00:04:25
I didn't know things could spin when your eyes were closed. And I was like,
00:04:28
yeah, it was like just that darkness of my vision was like
00:04:32
the inside of a washing machine just going around and round and round. And then
00:04:35
when I would open my eyes, it was like the same thing. It was just
00:04:38
like, just incredibly, incredibly dizzy.
00:04:42
And that dizzy led to, gosh, some really
00:04:45
terrible nausea. And I just didn't know what was going
00:04:49
on. And I told him, I was like, you know, I just, I just don't
00:04:52
feel great. Like, can you get the kids fed
00:04:55
for, for school? And he usually takes him to school in the morning. And like,
00:04:59
I'm just going to try to figure this out. But even like trying to lay
00:05:02
there and fall back to sleep, things were, were just spinning.
00:05:06
And so I was finally able to fall asleep and kind of sleep it off.
00:05:09
And I just didn't know what was going on. But in the back of my
00:05:12
mind, it was kind of like, well, this is like kind of like a vertigo
00:05:15
situation. And I don't have a history of vertigo. I don't have a
00:05:19
diagnosis of vertigo. And so it's just very
00:05:22
interesting. And so I kind of, you know, initially when
00:05:26
I woke up and I was having this dizziness, I kind of went through just,
00:05:29
like, what could be the reasons why I'm feeling dizzy. And one of was, you
00:05:33
know, maybe low blood sugar. So I went. Ate a banana and had some
00:05:37
applesauce for just some of those quick carbs to. To boost my blood
00:05:40
sugar, and that didn't seem to help. And so after I was kind of able
00:05:44
to sleep off some of this dizziness, I started
00:05:48
googling vertigo. And again, don't recommend Googling
00:05:52
anytime you have a potential medical issue because it can
00:05:56
lead to some really crazy things. But
00:05:59
I just decided, you know, okay, this is not normal. This does
00:06:03
not feel normal in my. In my body. And I couldn't really pinpoint
00:06:07
a reason why I would be having this episode of
00:06:10
dizziness and extreme nausea. And so I made the decision
00:06:14
to. I called my primary care physician and just kind of told them what was
00:06:18
going on, and they felt in the moment it would be best if I went
00:06:21
to urgent care. And so I did that, because some of the things that
00:06:25
you read about vertigo is that it can be, like, an underlying
00:06:28
symptom of something maybe more major happening.
00:06:32
And just if, you know, if you don't have, like,
00:06:36
a diagnosis of vertigo or this is kind of a new episode, or
00:06:40
you've never had this happen, that seeking care is. Is
00:06:43
warranted so they can kind of figure out what was going on. So
00:06:47
I decided to go to urgent care, and
00:06:51
I went in, and I'm not going to get the diagnosis right, but
00:06:55
I kind of had this, like, proximal
00:06:59
vertigo episode. And the reason why I was having it was
00:07:02
because I had kind of a fluid buildup in my eustachian tube, which is
00:07:06
like, where the fluid from your ears drain. And that was all related
00:07:10
to the changes in the weather that we've been having. We had a drop in,
00:07:13
like, our atmospheric pressure. We've been having some, you
00:07:17
know, really hot days, and then some not so hot days, some rainy days,
00:07:21
some not rainy days. And then just in this time of year, we
00:07:24
have a lot of allergens popping up, things that are dying off
00:07:28
from summer, summer, and then things that are blowing in from
00:07:32
fall and winter. And so the whole reason I had this vertigo episode
00:07:35
was because of all of this weather and allergen
00:07:39
stuff. And it was just very interesting
00:07:42
because it was, again, seeking that health of
00:07:46
what could possibly be going on, that curiosity, but also having
00:07:50
that having been able to establish my
00:07:53
approaches for taking care of myself within this love,
00:07:57
compassion, and mercy, which was not always what I
00:08:01
did. Right. Intuitive eating really helped me
00:08:05
foster an approach of love, compassion, and mercy when it
00:08:09
came to my health. And thankfully, it was also the door that.
00:08:13
That it was the door that opened into me, leading to that
00:08:16
closer relationship with Lord, with the Lord, so then really being able
00:08:20
to view myself as he viewed me in situations that he
00:08:24
was looking down on me with love, compassion, and
00:08:27
mercy, and that he was going to guide me in making these
00:08:31
decisions in that same approach.
00:08:34
And so it's very. That is a very, very different approach
00:08:38
than what kind of the society that we live in tells us,
00:08:42
right? Society encourages. Is. Encourages
00:08:45
us to, like, just push to our limits, right? That if we're not
00:08:49
feeling well, like, just suck it up because there's always something that needs to be
00:08:53
done. That burnout and stress should be
00:08:57
our normal. That productivity is king. And it's
00:09:01
more important to get as many things done as you
00:09:04
possibly can. And that rest is for only those people
00:09:08
who are weak or failures. And it's. That's a very,
00:09:12
very different approach than this idea
00:09:16
of love, compassion, and mercy. But I want to remind you that
00:09:20
the Lord encourages us to come to Him. He
00:09:23
says, come to me, all who are burdened, and I will give you
00:09:27
rest. That when we are connected with our
00:09:31
bodies and we have that. That experience,
00:09:35
you know, really starting with being able to understand our hunger
00:09:39
and fullness cues, right, that leads into a deeper connection with our. With
00:09:43
our bodies. And when we have that deeper connection, it really
00:09:46
helps us understand and be more aware of when things maybe
00:09:50
feel off in our body. And so then we can, you know,
00:09:54
take it to the Lord and ask him for his healing and ask
00:09:57
him for him to show us what is the best way to take care of
00:10:00
myself. How would you have me take care of myself in a way
00:10:04
that promotes love, compassion, and mercy?
00:10:08
And so I just want to pause
00:10:12
because yesterday there was
00:10:16
the loud, loud voice of the enemy who was telling me
00:10:19
that taking the day to rest, that taking the day to
00:10:23
figure out what was wrong, and taking the day to take that nap
00:10:26
to let my body heal was
00:10:30
detrimental to my productivity, that I wouldn't get
00:10:33
a podcast episode out in time for, you know, my
00:10:37
4:30am launch on Tuesday mornings, and that if I didn't
00:10:41
do that, then I was letting podcast
00:10:44
listeners down, that I would mess up my podcast numbers
00:10:48
and. And just on and on and on, and I would be, you know, such
00:10:51
a failure. And, Kara, you should have had, you know, a podcast
00:10:55
episode already ready to go for this week, because
00:10:59
how, you know, if you did, then you wouldn't be in this situation. And I
00:11:02
just had to stop and I had to, you know, again, clear
00:11:06
out that noise of the enemy. And thankfully, through mindset work,
00:11:10
I know how to do that. But really clear out and recognize that these are
00:11:14
the eyes, the lies of the enemy who are telling me all these things
00:11:17
that taking care of myself should be really put on the
00:11:21
back burner compared to,
00:11:25
you know, all the productivity, all the things that come with, with running a business.
00:11:29
And that's not the way the Lord looks at these situations.
00:11:33
He wants us to look at them with love, compassion, and mercy for
00:11:36
ourselves. And knowing that,
00:11:39
again, if we take this approach, that he's going to take care of
00:11:43
everything, right? Jeremiah 33, 6 reminds us
00:11:47
that the Lord will bring health and healing to it, that
00:11:50
he will heal his people and will let them enjoy abundant
00:11:54
peace and security, right? That when we take these times that we
00:11:58
aren't feeling great, or maybe we're stressed and overwhelmed,
00:12:02
or we are, are having to put something off that we
00:12:06
really don't want to, or, you know, just making the choice to take care
00:12:10
of yourself instead of putting a podcast episode out, that the Lord's
00:12:13
going to provide that he's going to take care of the whole situation. And. But
00:12:17
what he is asking you to do in that moment is to turn to him
00:12:20
and to allow yourself to rest in him, to put your
00:12:24
healing in his hands. And when
00:12:27
we can look at ourselves and the way that we care for ourselves, just
00:12:31
as Jesus looks at us with that love, compassion, and mercy,
00:12:35
not because he believes that we are weak or
00:12:39
failures the way the world has us look at love, compassion and
00:12:43
mercy, but because he is trying to tell us, like, hey, look,
00:12:46
I already got this. And if you just turn to me,
00:12:50
I will, I will give you healing. I will show you healing
00:12:54
through me, through me, healing you, as well as showing you
00:12:58
the people that you need in your life to help with healing,
00:13:01
right? So if we look at this at a bigger picture, if you're struggling with
00:13:05
diet culture, if you're struggling with body image, if you're struggling with,
00:13:09
you know, constantly being on that weight loss roller coaster,
00:13:13
he's showing you healing through. Through me, right?
00:13:17
Through the intuitive eating process, through this podcast, through the
00:13:21
programs and the courses and the coaching that I offer, just like if
00:13:25
you're struggling with mental and emotional health, he's probably showing you
00:13:28
how you can turn to counselors in those times and get
00:13:32
this, the help that you need. Because what's really cool is that when
00:13:36
we, when we get to that place of healing
00:13:39
and that we're looking at our health with love, compassion and mercy that we
00:13:43
are able to overcome these obstacles and these barriers that are kind of getting
00:13:47
in the way of us living our purpose and living our vocation. And so
00:13:51
I have to look at all of this healing that I've gone through.
00:13:54
He was preparing me for living my vocation to help women
00:13:58
like you heal their relationship with food and their body.
00:14:02
And so when you can do the same thing, right? When you can get
00:14:06
to that point of removing these obstacles and maybe that obstacle is your relationship
00:14:10
with food in your body, that when you remove that obstacle and the healing that
00:14:13
comes with that, it's removing that barrier to you living the
00:14:17
purpose of loving and serving others and living out the specific
00:14:20
vocation that he has planned for you
00:14:24
to love and serve others through that vocation to
00:14:27
provide healing and help to other people. And I think that is a
00:14:31
really beautiful thing to think about and a
00:14:35
beautiful thing to hold onto that when we can kind
00:14:39
of take this approach to our health and wellness, that it really
00:14:42
opens us up to really being able to
00:14:46
step into and fully embrace our purpose and our
00:14:50
vocations. And so I just want to take a few moments to kind of
00:14:53
just make these connections between love, compassion and mercy
00:14:57
in our health, specifically around
00:15:01
love. Studies show that love, whether from
00:15:04
relationships with others or self love, has measurable
00:15:08
health benefits, including things like reduced stress, lower
00:15:12
blood pressure and improved mental health. So ways that we
00:15:15
can really connect in, in this
00:15:19
virtue of love is through having loving relationships
00:15:22
with others as well as having a strong sense of Christ
00:15:26
centered self love for ourselves. Remember, we go back
00:15:30
to the two greatest commandments to love the Lord your. God with all your heart,
00:15:34
with all. Your strength, with all your soul. And then the second greatest is
00:15:37
like the first to love your neighbor as yourself. Right?
00:15:41
So it starts with that strong sense of Christ
00:15:45
centered self love. So then we can love others and
00:15:49
that the Lord models what that love looks like. And when we can do
00:15:52
that, we are really approaching our health with
00:15:56
how is the best way that I can take care of myself? What are the
00:15:59
things that I can do around my health and wellness that are promoting, promoting
00:16:02
that that strong sense of self love. So then you can model
00:16:06
that for, for other people as well as connecting your health
00:16:10
and wellness with the loves Lord for you and the good things that
00:16:14
he desires for for you?
00:16:17
Compassion. So compassion isn't just about being kind to
00:16:20
others. It's about being kind to ourselves, especially when we
00:16:24
fall short. And I think this is a huge one that we can all
00:16:28
Grow in. We tend to look at ourselves when we fall short
00:16:31
as failures. We tend to beat our. We tend to live with
00:16:35
guilt and shame and just say, we could have done this better. Right? It was
00:16:39
like the enemy telling me, well, Carrie, you should have just had that podcast episode
00:16:42
already ready for this week. And you know what? In a perfect world, I would
00:16:46
be like, you know, three weeks ahead on podcast, but in the
00:16:50
season of life, that's just not where I am. And a lot of
00:16:54
times, because one of my kind of strong strengths is this, like,
00:16:58
being able to live in the moment. A lot of times what I'm sharing on
00:17:02
podcasts is really coming from what is happening in my own. In my own
00:17:06
life, and then being able to share that or, you know, experiences
00:17:09
that I've had or things that I've heard, and then being able to incorporate
00:17:13
the knowledge that I have around intuitive eating or faith led health and wellness.
00:17:17
And it's allowing, you know, these podcast episodes to kind of flow
00:17:20
naturally based off of things that. That are happening. So I
00:17:24
could look at this and beat myself up and say, yeah, I should have, or
00:17:27
I could look at this and say, you know, what this opportunity gave
00:17:30
me, or this gave me the opportunity to share a different
00:17:34
perspective. So compassion, right? And so I chose
00:17:38
to look at this with compassion and say, you know what, I
00:17:41
can record it tomorrow and it's gonna be fine because I know the Lord's gonna
00:17:45
take care of this. But compassion really allows us to foster
00:17:48
resilience. It helps us manage anxiety and reduces
00:17:52
symptoms of depression because we are really treating
00:17:56
ourselves with the grace that the Lord
00:17:59
sheds upon us, right? We're again, being able to cast a
00:18:03
gaze upon ourselves the way the gaze of the Lord looks at
00:18:06
us, that there's no need to worry, that
00:18:10
worrying about these things only negatively impacts our
00:18:14
health, and it only leads us to fear and
00:18:17
being frozen and not taking any sort of action. So,
00:18:21
you know, really being able to focus on that compassion,
00:18:25
looking at certain situations and scenarios that come up in your life and say,
00:18:29
how could I put on, you know, my God glasses, right, that
00:18:33
lens that God has on for us and say, how do I
00:18:37
approach this with love and kindness for myself? Or how do I approach this with
00:18:40
love and kindness towards others? When we find ourselves,
00:18:44
themselves in these situations where we really want to
00:18:48
cast blame and shame and guilt and then
00:18:51
mercy. So mercy is really about forgiving ourselves and others
00:18:55
and releasing that burden of guilt and resentment. And
00:18:59
when we are really holding on to guilt and resentment through
00:19:02
grudges or through Anger, it can increase our cortisol
00:19:05
levels, which negatively impacts our health. Whereas when
00:19:09
we have this mercy, this forgiving attitude, just as Christ
00:19:13
forgives us, mercy helps us lower stress and foster a
00:19:17
more positive outlook. So really reflecting
00:19:20
on, is there someone in your life that you need to forgive? And
00:19:24
forgiving them, what sort of freedom does that allow for you? It's not condoning
00:19:27
and saying that what they did was
00:19:31
not wrong or it didn't hurt or wasn't harmful in some way, but it's just
00:19:35
saying, hey, I'm going to let this go, and I'm not going to take up
00:19:38
any more mental, emotional, spiritual energy on this situation.
00:19:42
So what does forgiveness, what kind of freedom does forgiveness offer
00:19:45
you? And then looking at your own. Your own potential
00:19:49
shortcomings, right? Perceived shortcomings, what are the things that you need to forgive
00:19:53
yourself for so you can promote that internal peace
00:19:57
so you can move forward and not be stuck in this.
00:20:00
This pattern of, you know, guilt and shame, but really forgiving
00:20:04
yourself because the Lord has already forgiven you, right?
00:20:08
And so love, compassion, and mercy are really central to Christ's teachings.
00:20:12
And when we can integrate these virtues into our health, it can lead to
00:20:15
profound transformation. Like I said personally and how I hand
00:20:19
things within my own life and when I have
00:20:23
situations like yesterday, it was really
00:20:26
putting my health and wellness as a priority from that love, compassion, and
00:20:30
mercy and forgiving myself for, you know, not having a
00:20:34
podcast episode ready and not, you give
00:20:37
myself that compassion and that grace that it was all going to be okay.
00:20:43
And just as a side note, y'all, if there's a week that I
00:20:47
miss a podcast episode, just know that I am coming back, okay?
00:20:51
Life happens. And I through. Through what I
00:20:55
teach and through what I've learned for myself, I am the kind of a
00:20:59
coach, the kind of mentor that I honestly really
00:21:02
embody what I what and practice
00:21:06
what I preach, what I teach you. So I'm not going to sit here
00:21:10
and yesterday dealing with, you know, an episode of
00:21:14
Vertigo where I just wasn't feeling great
00:21:17
and saying, okay, well, I just got to suck it up and put this podcast
00:21:20
episode because, you know, these people are really depending on it. And
00:21:24
it was taking a step back and realizing, you know, let this
00:21:28
be a teaching moment for. For listeners to
00:21:32
help them start to make these
00:21:35
decisions based off of how the Lord would want us to treat ourselves in that
00:21:39
moment and trust that he's going to take care of it all. So just know
00:21:43
that if I don't show up on a week on a podcast, Or I'm
00:21:46
late, it's coming. I'm just probably practicing something that I'm
00:21:50
teaching you through all of this. So I appreciate the, the
00:21:54
patience and the compassion from you in that, in
00:21:57
navigating the situation this particular week.
00:22:01
But like I said, I really embody and I practice what it is that I
00:22:05
teach you and, and what I preach. And I can see, I can see that
00:22:08
difference in my own life. This past summer, I was really struggling
00:22:11
with a lot of chronic fatigue and got curious about it because
00:22:15
I looked, I was doing, I looked at my health habits and it's like, you
00:22:18
know, I'm eating well, I'm, I'm moving, I'm exercising
00:22:22
and I am, I'm getting good sleep. Sleep has always been a
00:22:26
priority for me. And so it's like something is not quite right,
00:22:30
right. Why are, am I having these days where I feel like I
00:22:33
need to take a two hour nap or why am I so sluggish and so
00:22:37
that curiosity, right? Instead of just saying, well, I, you know, I
00:22:40
need to do this more, do this more, I got curious about it and I
00:22:44
got, I approached it with that love, compassion and mercy for myself
00:22:47
that he, I really want to take care of myself. And so, you know,
00:22:51
it led me to doing, to doing blood work and understanding
00:22:55
that I have a diagnosis of Epstein Barr virus and it's kind of
00:22:59
a chronic one. And so I'll have these, these flare ups that will
00:23:02
happen that will have episodes of chronic fatigue.
00:23:06
And that was like a huge light bulb moment because it was like, okay, well,
00:23:09
I can, I can now know how to better navigate these things.
00:23:13
And instead of being frustrated with my body, instead of, you know, beating
00:23:16
myself up for like, oh man, like I need to take this
00:23:20
nap, I can look at it from that compassion and mercy and saying, you
00:23:24
know, this is what my body needs in this moment to, to take care of
00:23:27
it. And if I do that, if I take care of it in this moment,
00:23:31
then I'm going to have again that, that abundance that the Lord promises,
00:23:35
you know, later that it's going to allow
00:23:39
me to show up as the mom that I want, to show up as the
00:23:42
dietitian that I want, the coach that I want, if I take care of my,
00:23:45
my here and now situations, my here and now body.
00:23:50
And so, you know, that's an example. I've also had a client
00:23:53
who, she was pregnant when
00:23:57
we started working together. She had a past pregnancy that
00:24:00
she had a diagnosis of gestational diabetes
00:24:04
and she just wasn't sure if intuitive eating would really be the
00:24:08
time would be if pregnancy was the time to do this. And so we kind
00:24:12
of talked about how a lot of the intuitive eating approaches can be
00:24:15
very helpful during pregnancy and how we
00:24:19
can kind of do things to promote her
00:24:23
overall health and wellness from an intuitive eating standpoint. And that if she
00:24:27
was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, we can use some of the
00:24:31
foundational principles of intuitive eating to help her manage that diagnosis.
00:24:35
But she looked at it as, you know, she had a chronic
00:24:38
dieting history, and she didn't want to carry that over into her
00:24:42
pregnancy or postpartum. And so, you know, we took a
00:24:46
lot of the principles of intuitive eating, and one thing we really focused on
00:24:49
was helping her to consistently
00:24:53
fuel her body throughout the day, because when we do that, we know that we
00:24:57
have more regulated blood sugar levels and our body can
00:25:01
utilize glucose properly. So when we started to embody that
00:25:05
and she started to, you know, make peace with some forbidden foods
00:25:08
that she had, she started to see that it was much easier.
00:25:12
She had this. This, you know, more compassionate
00:25:15
approach for her body and for, you know,
00:25:19
the pregnancy state that she was going through. And it was that compassion of,
00:25:23
like, man, I want to take care of my body because
00:25:26
I've been given the gift of bearing life, and if I take care of myself,
00:25:30
then I'm taking care of my unborn baby. And she. She
00:25:34
saw that she was having a better attitude, a better approach,
00:25:37
better results with
00:25:41
this intuitive eating approach and taking this approach
00:25:45
and incorporating this perspective of love, compassion, and
00:25:49
mercy. She actually did not end up with a gestational diabetes approach.
00:25:53
And she, you know, delivered a healthy baby, had healthy
00:25:57
labor and delivery, and postpartum, she was able to
00:26:01
embody that intuitive eating approach and embody that compassion and that
00:26:04
mercy for herself's work past pregnancies. It was very much like, I need to
00:26:08
drop this baby weight. I need to. To, you know, count the
00:26:12
calories, lose the weight, whatever. Whereas this one, she really took it as,
00:26:16
I'm going to let my body heal and I'm going to give myself. I'm going
00:26:19
to give my body the things that I need to promote this healing, as well
00:26:23
as give my body the things that it needs in order to
00:26:26
feed my baby through my breastfeeding journey and provide
00:26:30
adequate nutrition and care for him as well. I
00:26:34
also have a client, a past client, who she
00:26:37
struggled. She had always struggled with being overweight and
00:26:41
obese, but she had a chronic dieting history. She
00:26:44
also had thyroid issues, Hashimoto's
00:26:48
diagnosis in particular. And so we really took on the intuitive
00:26:51
eating journey and looked at things from this love, compassion and mercy perspective
00:26:55
and how she was treating her herself and how she was treating her body, the
00:26:59
things that she was thinking. And that has really, really
00:27:02
shifted things for her. She was pre diabetic
00:27:06
when we started working together, and she, in her own
00:27:10
intuitive eating journey actually had weight loss, but
00:27:13
her body has gotten to, you know, a stable weight. She
00:27:17
would still be classified as overweight or obese, but her
00:27:21
weight is stable. And what's been really cool is that when
00:27:25
she has followed up with her endocrinologist, she's no longer that pre
00:27:28
diabetic. And so she really looked at this with
00:27:32
how, how can I take care of my body in, in
00:27:36
the best way possible instead of how can I change my body
00:27:39
to, to
00:27:43
try to control a health outcome? Right. So it's just a matter
00:27:47
of flipping that script, flipping that, that perspective.
00:27:50
And so I thank you
00:27:54
for kind of the ramblings of this podcast episode today.
00:27:58
But I just wanted to really take and
00:28:01
embody this idea that when we approach our health and wellness with love,
00:28:05
compassion and mercy, because that's the way the Lord approaches us,
00:28:09
that it's going to lead to better health outcomes for
00:28:12
ourselves. And so I just challenge you today to
00:28:16
take a moment to really reflect on how you can show more
00:28:19
love, compassion and mercy in your life towards
00:28:23
yourself as well as others. And maybe it's reaching out to
00:28:26
someone or practicing some self compassion or forgiving
00:28:30
yourself for a past mistake. And so, as always, I thank
00:28:34
you for joining me on the Nurse to Bloom podcast. And if this
00:28:38
message resonated with you or you know, someone in your life who needs
00:28:41
this message of love, compassion and mercy, please share it with a
00:28:45
friend so we can, you know, really help, help spread the
00:28:49
healing power that comes from the Lord when we embody
00:28:53
these virtues of love, compassion and mercy.
00:28:56
Thanks again for joining me. Until next time, remember
00:29:00
that beauty held is the seed, beauty shared is the flower. It is
00:29:04
your time to bloom. Take care, have a beautiful and blessed week
00:29:08
and I will see you next week.
Related Episodes
Ep. 40 How Mary's Yes Can Inspire and Shape Your New Year's Resolutions
Hey there, do you ever feel like your New Year's goals fall flat, despite your best intentions? Like, you set these grand resolutions, but somewhere along the way, you lose steam and fall back into old habits? This week on the Nourished to Bloom podcast (episode 40, by the way!), we dive into this exact struggle through the inspiring story of...
Ep. 39: The Gift of Self-Care: Finding Joy and Balance Through Christ-Centered Self-Care; Faith-Led Wellness Holiday Game Plan, Part 4
As we dive headfirst into the holiday🎄 season, it's easy to get overwhelmed by gift shopping, family gatherings, and the never-ending to-do list. But what if this year, we approached the holidays differently—with a sense of peace, purpose, and balance? 🌟 In this episode, we explore Christ-centered self-care and offer practical tips to nouri...
Ep. 37 5 Steps to Not "Stuffing" Down Your Holiday Emotions; Faith-Led Wellness Holiday Game Plan, Part 2
Hey friends! Welcome back to another episode of Nourished to Bloom. Today, we're tackling a topic that's crucial as the holiday season approaches—how not to stuff down your holiday emotions with food. 🦃🎄✨ If the mere thought of holiday gatherings throws your emotions into a whirlwind, you're not alone. Whether it’s joy, stress, or overwhelm...